Saturday, April 10, 2010

What does Stephen Covey's signature depict about his personality?

Recognized as one of Time magazine's 25 most influential Americans, Stephen R. Covey has dedicated his life to demonstrating how every person can truly control their destiny with profound, yet straightforward guidance.

• Authored four titles with sales exceeding one million copies each: First Things First , Principle-Centered Leadership, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was named the #1 Most Influential Business Book of the Twentieth Century
• Over 20 million books sold (in 38 languages)

Signature Sample


This Signature Sample is resized for better readibility


A note about Signature Analysis

First thing to note is that the analysis results may differ quite much from the Handwriting analysis results of an Individual. The main reason for this is that a person's Signature reflects his or her's public self image i.e. how a person wants himself to be percieved or seen in public also how a person behaves in public. So Signature analysis may not reveal core trait as handwriting would because people behave differently in public that at home or with near or dear ones. But none the less, it reveals an important and relevant information.
Usually, the Signatures are best analyzed when a person's Handwriting sample is also available because Interpretation may vary depending upon differences in size, slant, legibility, direction of both handwriting and the signature samples.
This signature analysis for Stephen Covey is done in isolation with handwiting as the handwriting sample was not available.But nevertheless, the signature releaved quite rich information about Stephen Covey's personality as stated below.

Stephen Covey's Signature Analysis

Stephen Covey possesses fluidity of thoughts . Fluidity of thoughts denotes the ability of a person to move from one thought to other or from one thought pattern to another with ease. This trait gives him immense ability to write or express his ideas with graceful fluidity. This is a single trait that probably makes him such a great writer and a good conversationalist.

Diplomacy is one of his noticeable attributes. He has the ability to say what others want to hear. He has the flair to state things in such a way as to not offend someone else. This trait again helps him in being a great speaker and especially in putting his point across with poise.

He is an investigative thinker . He thinks rapidly and has a desire to satisfy many curiosities, always enquiring and curious about many things. It is this trait that has possibly led him to explore diverse personal effectiveness aspects.

He has the desire to take more responsibility . With this trait, he doesn’t get easily satisfied with the status quo and always strive to handle more responsibility. That probably explains why he has been successful in writing so many best sellers as always desired for more.

He possesses great deal of enthusiasm in his personality. Enthusiasm is a key ingredient to his success in the chosen field because it motivates one towards positive action. Enthusiasm is a producer of confidence and generates that extra spark that makes him great.

He is more braced towards his own ideas. Many people known to him might think of him as stubborn because once he makes up his mind, he don’t really wish to be confused by facts. Once he thinks he is right, he takes a stand and sticks to it.

The part of his signature also signifies disappointment or negative feelings towards his public self image in the business world or particularly the area of his work. This is probably because (as his signature indicates) he has tendencies to be a loner i.e. a feeling that he is very self-sufficient and always trying not to need anyone.

He is a practical person whose goals are planned, is practical, and down to earth . This is typical of people with healthy and positive self-esteem that contributes to his success. He has a need to visualize the end of a project before the start. This trait has probably helped him in authoring great successful books.

The basis of Stephen Covey's Signature Analysis

The image below depicts the building blocks of the above Signature Analysis.


These build blocks are useful to understand the thinking behind my thinking in coming up with the handwriting analysis. I would be eager to know your comments/ thoughts.

References and Credits:
1. Stephen Covey’s Picture and Introduction source-
http://www.stephencovey.com/about/about.php

2. Stephen Covey's Picture source:
http://www.strategiesforliving.com/images/StephenCovey.bmp

3. Stephen Covey’s Signature source-
The course material of training program on “7 habits for Highly effective Managers”

6 comments:

  1. I grew up having this man in my area and had close proximity to him at times. This is accurate.

    In considering all the other traits (and sadly you don't have access to other script of his), what about the double looped "o"?

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  2. Thank you for your comments. It means a good lot to me espacially knowing you had a close proximity to Stephen. I too wish i had more of his handwriting to analyze. You know i purposefully let the mention of double looped "o" go a bit because i wanted to see more of his handwriting to make a conclusion and secondly didnt really wanted to sensationalize the stuff (represented by double lopped "o") as i would have liked to comment seeing the handwriting as well. I have observed many graphology experts highlight the shortcomings more even after getting a whiff from the handwriting but to me accuracy and balance is important. I would highlight the stuff i am quite confident about irrespective of it being percieved as shortcoming or strengths.
    Thank you for bringing this point up. My email address is amagazine@gmail.com. If you are ok, i would like to be in touch with you discussing more of Graphology. Waiting to hear back.

    Regards,
    Anuj

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  3. Thank you for this very useful article. It was very interesting to me because I am working on a graphology project for Forensics and my Technical Writing teacher suggested I look at Stephen Covey's '7 Habits'. I really appreciate the time and knowledge you put into analyzing Mr. Covey's signature; the fact that Anonymous supports the conclusions drawn about Mr. Covey's personality tells me that there was a lot of thought put into this research.

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  4. The downslanted 'n' hump is actually a V

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  5. i noticed the double loops as well and was interested to see what you had to say about it.

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  6. Caryl- I did notice double loops as well which indicated the tendency to lie. But in absence of any supporting data or grave controversial instances from Stephen's life, i left it out. But i do think, Handwriting is a reflection of personality and would have loved to see his handwriting in addition to his signature to make a definitive comment here.

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